Monday, August 15, 2011

Evolution? Impossible!

I have sometimes thought about making short videos for Youtube or adding my own videos to my blog but I've rejected the idea for a variety of reasons. Maybe sometime I will but, in the meantime, there are already a ton of good videos already on Youtube. The problem is, you have to wade through a bunch of junk to find them.

Anyway, the good folks at Answers in Genesis have put together a short video that does a pretty good job of summing up some fundamental flaws in evolution. I've included it here for your review. It's only about 2 1/2 minutes long and it's a good watch. I'm sure a lot of people have a lot to say about it (rather, say against it) but keep in mind that it's supposed to raise some points that can be used by laypeople and not be a college lecture.

5 comments:

"Fact one: There is no known observable process by which new genetic information can be added to an organism's genetic code. None."

This assertion is categorically false. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and use the host's organelles to replicate its genetic material in order to create new viruses. Some of these bacteriophages introduce plasmids (DNA molecules that can exist independently of chromosomal DNA) while others integrate their DNA directly into the DNA of the host bacterium.

This is an observable phenomenon that has been known to scientists for several decades.

This fact does not prove that evolution is a fact. It does, however, suggest that the creator of the video needs to go back and learn a bit more about microbiology/genetics before making such assertions.

Let's take the video's second point first: no one has ever observed life come from non-life. Inter alia, that means that we have no confirmed observations of men being made out of dust, or of fish or birds being poofed into existence ex nihilo.

Congratulations: on the video's own standards, it's just shown that creation is scientifically refuted. Or, possibly, scientists have not yet observed everything that is possible.

A side note: researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK have shown that RNA can spontaneously self-assemble through repeated wetting and drying of simple compounds that occur commonly in nature. Different researchers, at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, CA, have shown that certain particular sequences of RNA can replicate themselves without the aid of proteins or other large molecules. Thus far, no one has, to my knowledge, managed to get such self-replicating RNA sequences to form without deliberate human intervention in the sequence, but the gaps between non-life and life do appear to be shrinking a bit.

Now, as for "genetic information," the video uses the term several times without defining it. Known, observed sorts of mutations include changing one base to another, adding or deleting a base, duplicating a series of bases (including entire genes or sets of genes), moving a series of bases from one part of the genome to another. In sequence, such changes can alter any genome to any other.

In particular, gene duplication followed by another sort of mutation to the duplicate gene can result in a descendant which has all the genes of its ancestors, plus one novel gene (this is thought to be the origin of nylon-eating bacteria: a Flavobacterium which experienced a gene duplication followed by a frame-shift mutation -- loss of one base pair -- in the duplicate gene).

It's worth noting that in one of its articles, Answers in Genesis once remarked, on the ca. 98% sequence similarity between humans and chimpanzees, that this still amounts to sixty million base pairs worth of "new information" in the human genome. This implies that every difference between human and chimpanzee genomes is "new information."

But some of these differences are merely single-nucleotide substitutions (changes in one base) to various genes. Some of these changes are gene duplications (there is one gene of which we have one copy, and chimps have five, which implies that "information," in the AiG sense, can be increased in one lineage by gene duplication in a different lineage!).

The claim that "science" has shown that mutations cannot add undefined (or inconsistently-defined) "information" is incoherent if not outright wrong.

The video made a lot of fuss (relative to its short length) about artistic reconstructions of intermediate hominids. But one need not bother with artists' attempts to depict the flesh and skin that once covered these bones: there are plenty of popular works (to say nothing of scholarly ones) that concern themselves with the bones themselves; Tattersall's Extinct Humans, for example, has page after page of photographs of skulls. One can note the changes in braincase size, the shape and size of the jaw, the size of the brow ridge, etc. and compare them to the skulls of living humans and nonhuman apes. You don't need painters and sculptors to see the intermediate nature of many of these fossils. Even limiting oneself to popular works, one need not limit oneself to children's books to explain evolution or adduce the evidence for it.

The video starts out by complaining that evolutionists say that Christians are irrational and incapable of doing science. My own experience, of course, is that evolutionists point out that a great many Christians accept an ancient Earth and common descent of humans and other species. Christianity is no more defined by creationism (much less by young-earth creationism!) than it is by geocentric astronomy. Perhaps you and Richard Dawkins agree that it ought to be, but it is not, and most evolutionists are not only willing but eager to make that point.

You said, "Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and use the host's organelles to replicate its genetic material in order to create new viruses."

Hmmm. It's seems a bit contradictory to say that bacteriophages "replicate" the host's genetic material in order to create new genetic material. But hey, if you think it's a winning argument, then for it. Good luck with that one.

As always, thanks for visiting and for your comments. I don't want to complain, of course, but you've done this long enough that you know about the time and space constraints in responding to long posts. It's just a suggestion, but I could reply more easily and directly if your comments were a little more direct. “Less is more” as the saying goes. As I said, it's just a suggestion.

You said, “Okay, that was ghastly.”

Should I respond to such a comment? It's already understood that you disagree with the video and with divine creation in general. Therefore, comments like this are superfluous and are clearly meant to inflame. I only point this out because it is comments like this that could be omitted for the sake of brevity.

You said, “Let's take the video's second point first: no one has ever observed life come from non-life. Inter alia, that means that we have no confirmed observations of men being made out of dust, or of fish or birds being poofed into existence ex nihilo.

Congratulations: on the video's own standards, it's just shown that creation is scientifically refuted. Or, possibly, scientists have not yet observed everything that is possible.”

I think you're being overly celebratory. Do you visit AiG's website often? If not, you'd be surprised that they would likely agree with you. AiG has long pointed out the difference between conducting science by observations in the present and creating theories about the unobserved past. It did so in this video. We cannot prove scientifically that Adam lived. We know he lived only through the revelation of the Creator.

Your camp engages in similar faith-like beliefs such as believing that life can begin spontaneously even though such a thing has never been observed to occur. The difference is that your side resents being called a religion and insists it is still being scientific.

You said, “A side note: researchers at theUniversity of Manchester in the UK have shown that RNA can spontaneously self-assemble through repeated wetting and drying of simple compounds that occur commonly in nature. Different researchers, at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, CA, have shown that certain particular sequences of RNA can replicate themselves without the aid of proteins or other large molecules. Thus far, no one has, to my knowledge, managed to get such self-replicating RNA sequences to form without deliberate human intervention in the sequence, but the gaps between non-life and life do appear to be shrinking a bit.”

Perhaps if scientists ever create a self-replicating life form, it will be evidence that intelligent design is required to create life? It's just a thought.

That's about all I have time and space for now. Thanks again for visiting.

RKBentley

About me

I'm a husband, a father, and a Christian. Being a Christian is not something I do on Sundays but rather it is who I am. My faith influences everything I do. Christians are commanded to always be ready to give an answer – a reason for the hope that is in us. I take that command seriously. Psalm 19:7 says that the testimony of the LORD is sure. If we base all of our thinking on the Bible, we can't go wrong. I started this blog to encourage other Christians and challenge critics on a variety of issues. Whether you agree or disagree with me, you're welcome here. Please follow me on Twitter and friend me on FaceBook! God bless!!